waterboy222
Seaman
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2011
- Messages
- 56
I am rebuilding a late 90's Trojan (Carver) 400 Express. I pulled the trim tabs off last week to rebuild the cylinders and water poured out of the screw holes.. Yay...
I was under the impression, and according to Carver's literature, that there was no wood used below the water line on these boats. I guess they forgot about stringers and transom corners.
The transom is all glass except for the aft corners in the trim tab area. When you cut the fiberglass exterior skin off, you can find the plywood pad inside.
On the PORT side the wood was completely rotted and wet. The culprit here looks to be the screw holes for the trim tabs and the hole where the hydraulic line for the actuator comes through the transom. I dug/chipped/ground out all the wood and will be replacing it with marine grade 3/4 ply. It appeared that this whole area was done in one single sheet of plywood.
On the STBD side there was only one small area about a 1/2 wide that was wet. It was in a line directly below the hole for the hydraulic line. I removed about 10" wide of wood from the area and all the way to the bottom of the transom. The rest of the wood is bone dry. The black areas you see in the pictures is not wet, rot or mold, its simply the burn marks from the grinder and the dust from cutting through the black bottom paint. This area was done with three separate pieces of plywood with the gaps being filled with some type of foam. The glass had completely delaminated from the wood. If you zoom in, you can see a handful of glass fibers still stuck to the ply on the left side and some of the foam peeking out between the joints. The rest of fiberglass wasn't even touching the wood and there is no evidence of resin anywhere else. It looks like they laid the hull then after it cured they added the hardware pad without wetting it out then just glassed over the back of it.
My questions (finally). How should I repair this? Should I go ahead and remove all 3 pieces of ply from the starboard side and replace it with one panel? The joints in the material are simply butted together, they aren't scarfed at all. The filet material looks to be some kind of incredibly soft foam. I have dug almost all of it out. Should I go back with this same material or just use peanut butter?
I am adding 5 underwater lights across the transom and I don't want to worry about water intrusion again so I am considering making a 4x4 hole in the plywood and filling it with 1708/CSM until its the same thickness as the ply. That would give me a fiberglass area to screw the lights into and allow the wires to go through the transom without having any contact with wood. I plan on wetting out the marine grade ply, rolling on some slightly thickened epoxy onto the inside skin of the glass, attaching the new wood then drilling a hole through it so I can use a bolt/washer/nut to hold it all together while it cures then fill the bolt holes in.
Any advice is appreciated. I want to make sure I am on the right path before going to this next step.
http://imgur.com/QP3Kd7g
http://imgur.com/As2USXX
I was under the impression, and according to Carver's literature, that there was no wood used below the water line on these boats. I guess they forgot about stringers and transom corners.
The transom is all glass except for the aft corners in the trim tab area. When you cut the fiberglass exterior skin off, you can find the plywood pad inside.
On the PORT side the wood was completely rotted and wet. The culprit here looks to be the screw holes for the trim tabs and the hole where the hydraulic line for the actuator comes through the transom. I dug/chipped/ground out all the wood and will be replacing it with marine grade 3/4 ply. It appeared that this whole area was done in one single sheet of plywood.
On the STBD side there was only one small area about a 1/2 wide that was wet. It was in a line directly below the hole for the hydraulic line. I removed about 10" wide of wood from the area and all the way to the bottom of the transom. The rest of the wood is bone dry. The black areas you see in the pictures is not wet, rot or mold, its simply the burn marks from the grinder and the dust from cutting through the black bottom paint. This area was done with three separate pieces of plywood with the gaps being filled with some type of foam. The glass had completely delaminated from the wood. If you zoom in, you can see a handful of glass fibers still stuck to the ply on the left side and some of the foam peeking out between the joints. The rest of fiberglass wasn't even touching the wood and there is no evidence of resin anywhere else. It looks like they laid the hull then after it cured they added the hardware pad without wetting it out then just glassed over the back of it.
My questions (finally). How should I repair this? Should I go ahead and remove all 3 pieces of ply from the starboard side and replace it with one panel? The joints in the material are simply butted together, they aren't scarfed at all. The filet material looks to be some kind of incredibly soft foam. I have dug almost all of it out. Should I go back with this same material or just use peanut butter?
I am adding 5 underwater lights across the transom and I don't want to worry about water intrusion again so I am considering making a 4x4 hole in the plywood and filling it with 1708/CSM until its the same thickness as the ply. That would give me a fiberglass area to screw the lights into and allow the wires to go through the transom without having any contact with wood. I plan on wetting out the marine grade ply, rolling on some slightly thickened epoxy onto the inside skin of the glass, attaching the new wood then drilling a hole through it so I can use a bolt/washer/nut to hold it all together while it cures then fill the bolt holes in.
Any advice is appreciated. I want to make sure I am on the right path before going to this next step.
http://imgur.com/QP3Kd7g
http://imgur.com/As2USXX
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